258 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

Women Working in a Greedy

Institution: Commitment and
Emotional Labour in the
Union Movement
Suzanne Franzway*
This paper seeks to move beyond the restrictions of limited representations of women’s
participation in the union movement. Through a focus on the union movement as a ‘greedy
institution’, it is argued that women’s union involvement requires complex and dynamic
negotiations with its gendered discourses and practices. As a greedy institution, the union
movement demands considerable depth of commitment and loyalty, as well as high levels
of work and emotional labour. Based on a study of a network of women union officials, this
paper discusses the ways women interpret three main aspects of trade union work: commit-
ment, workload and emotional labour. I argue that the strategies the women officials employ
do not remain static within a limited frame of gender difference from men. Rather, they must
engage with the effects of male dominance of the union movement as well as the difficulties
associated with union activism, family, service to members, leadership, and care in order to
take up the political opportunities available in this greedy institution.

Introduction discourses and practices, including discourses

of traditional unionism.

U nion officials work long, strenuous

hours in response to the heroic demands
made by trade unionism. Rightly critical of
the effects this has on women’s active union
participation, feminists analyse the problem
in terms of the male dominance of unionism.
However, this tends to overlook significant
aspects of what is involved for women who
participate as union officials. Not only are
the hours long, but the nature of the work of
union officials raises issues about experience,
emotions and personal power. Further, par-
ticipation requires a degree of commitment
to trade unionism, however understood. Such
a commitment is shaped by gender differ-
ence in the ways women and men negotiate
these demands.
I suggest that these important aspects of
women’s participation may be usefully under-
stood through a focus on the union move-
Address for ment as a ‘greedy institution’ (Coser 1974).
correspondence:
* Suzanne Franzway, Based on a study of a network of women
Centre for Gender Studies, union officials, this paper discusses the ways
University of South these women interpret three main aspects
Australia, St Bernards of the business of working in a greedy institu-
Road, Magill Campus
5072, Australia, e-mail:
tion: commitment, workload and emotional
suzanne.franzway@unisa. labour. I argue that this involves complex
edu.au and dynamic negotiations with available
In this paper, I draw on the related concepts,
discourses and practices, where discourse
produces, and is produced by, practice
(Frazer and Lacey 1993). Discourse is con-
ceived as composed of signs which are
practices ‘that systematically form the objects
of which they speak’ (Barrett 1991, p. 130).
Discourses therefore constitute the conditions
of the historical appearance of material
objects. However, discourse is not exhaustive
and must be allied with an analysis of prac-
tice, or human action that is socially based
and organized. Thus practice emphasizes
materiality and power, so that making fem-
inist politics within the trade union move-
ment, for example, demands specific
discourses and practices. In this sense,
discourses and practices both enable and
limit available possibilities.
Discourses of traditional unionism incor-
porate assumptions and beliefs that men are
normative workers and unionists, whereas
women are problematic and different. The
availability of feminist discourses enables
negotiation and resistance to traditional
union discourses, but neither kind of dis-
course proves sufficient for women’s union
participation.

© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and
Volume 7 Number 4 October 2000 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
COMMITMENT AND EMOTIONAL LABOUR IN THE UNION MOVEMENT
The material for this paper is drawn from
a case study of a network of women union
officials in South Australia. I interviewed
women officials in positions ranging from
appointed union organizers to senior elected
officials, Secretaries and Presidents as well
as several involved in the local peak council,
the South Australian United Trades and
Labor Council, the Working Women’s Centre
and the Trade Union Training Authority.
(I use pseudonyms throughout this paper.)
The research reflects my own experience as a
participant in various union women’s forums
for more than a decade.
Greedy institution
Ideally, union activism demands a commit-
ment not only to do the job well, but a com-
mitment to particular sets of values. Union
officials become committed to the institu-
tions of unionism. Unions are organizations
which require the commitment and loyalty
of their members. Lewis Coser defined such
organizations as ‘greedy institutions’, a con-
cept which suggests the voraciousness of
the demands of union activism and requires
a considerable commitment of time and
libidinal energy.
[Greedy institutions] seek exclusive and
undivided loyalty and attempt to reduce
the claims of competing roles and status
positions on those they wish to encompass
within their boundaries. Their demands on
the person are omnivorous. (Coser 1974,
p. 4)
The concept of the ‘greedy institution’ has
the merit of suggesting that its members are
active in committing their time and loyalties
to the institution. Such institutions include
the family as well as the union.
By definition, only one greedy institution
may be served at a time, but women union
officials are confronted with two. Coser argues
that the family is the greedy institution that
dominates women’s lives so women who
commit to a greedy institution in the public
sphere must resolve the conflicting demands
of both greedy institutions. This is a key
difference between women and men in the
paid workforce. Men generally do not need
to meet the main requirements of domestic
life, including their own needs for personal
care. Men can rely on others, usually women,
to meet these needs for them. ‘Women are
expected to be committed to their work “just
like men” at the same time as they are
normatively required to give priority to their
family’ (Coser 1974, p. 92). Thus, the issue of
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
259
women’s union participation involves more
than the arbitrary demands of the work, but
also involves the inequalities caused by male
dominance of trade unionism, and the dis-
courses and practices of patriarchal gender
relations in both the public and the private
spheres.
The literature on women and unions
stresses that involvement in unions is
enormously demanding on both sexes, but
doubly so for women. ‘Personal sacrifice is
expected. The higher the position, the greater
the demands on the individual’ (Gray 1993,
p. 387). Union work is a tough business
exacting great personal cost and apparently
giving little pleasure. A large-scale survey
of South Australian unionists reported that
many saw it as ‘a combination of entering
the Church and politics’ (Muir 1994, p. 15).
Clearly, a greedy institution.
Greedy institutions allow and require the
total commitment of selected members only.
In trade unions, the union officials generally
become the select, but these have rarely been
women. It is debatable whether women are
excluded by men determined to maintain
the trade union movement as a ‘men’s move-
ment’ (Campbell 1984; Lake 1986), or by
gendered constraints on women such as the
demands of the family. The few women
who are included must be an unusual ‘mix of
strong, ambitious, bright, dogged, aggressive,
charismatic, ruthless, shrewd, unconventional
in their self-confidence and life expectations
— and very, very patient!’ (Gray 1993, p. 397).
Commitment
It’s a world of its own. There’s no other
movement like it, no.
(And is there understanding about it on
the outside?)
No, not to the commitment, to the under-
standing. No, I don’t think so. (Dee)
Commitment to the values it represents,
articulates and sanctions is a fundamental
principle of the greedy institution. Women
union officials in my study articulate their
commitment to the values of trade unionism
in terms of available discourses. The male
dominance of trade unionism produces a clear
ambivalence in the women’s commitment,
but they are no less committed than men to
the goals and values of trade unionism and
its promise of justice and equality. Rather, the
women officials seek to manage the tensions
in unionism’s contradictions in order to
create, utilize, and extend the political
possibilities which unionism itself allows.
Volume 7 Number 4 October 2000
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Commitment is essential to trade union-
ism as it relies on the voluntary compliance
of members to its values.
No union can function for a day in the
absence of some rudimentary notions held
by the members that being a member is of
value in itself, that the individual organ-
ization costs must not be calculated in a
utilitarian manner but have to be accepted
as necessary sacrifices, and that each mem-
ber is legitimately required to practise
solidarity and discipline. (Offe 1985,
p. 183)
Offe’s reference to ‘sacrifice’ suggests that
the union cannot function unless some of the
members actively seek to promote and exer-
cise the values of the organization at some
cost. And this means, as one of Cockburn’s
union informants remarked, ‘First and fore-
most, you need commitment’ (Cockburn 1991,
p. 120). Without commitment, the structural
and political pressures on the union will
overwhelm the organization. In this context,
the meaning of commitment generally derives
from discourses of traditional unionism.1 But
the ambivalence of the women officials about
traditional unionism leads them to draw on
alternative discourses of feminism and social
justice.
Commitment also can mean something
more than sacrifice:
… being involved in unions isn’t just a job,
it’s a political and social position so obvi-
ously you get a sense of personal fulfil-
ment simply working in this area, because
it fits with your commitment. (Eva)
Satisfaction in achievement is something the
greedy institution offers to those who are
committed to its perceived goals. This is not
to deny the seductive possibilities of power,
prestige and status which the union makes
available to the select few who gain advant-
ageous organizational positions in the union.
‘Service to members’ constitutes an im-
portant dimension of union commitment.
Ledwith et al. (1990, p. 121) observe that
women officials are likely to feel this to a
high degree. The South Australian women
officials appear to be similar. For example,
an organizer in a blue-collar union argues
that service involves achieving gains for
members:
… when you go into a factory where
workers are not being heard, who believe
they’re not valuable and don’t think things
can change, and you hold meetings, you
talk to the workers, … you talk to the
employers and at the end of a few months
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GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
it’s just fantastic, and we have got equal
women, equal men and the happiness, yes.
I think it’s really important to see that it
can be done. That people that have en-
visioned unions to be thuggery have seen
women come in and actually do it differ-
ently. (Dee)
Achievement of gender equality between the
women and men workers improves work
conditions. According to Dee, the image of
unions acting with a bullying, even criminal
toughness, may be successfully replaced by
women’s consensual approach. This argu-
ment is extended by a white-collar union
official who elaborates on this different
approach to putting union commitment into
effect:
… being able to be passionate about the
things I believe in … And being able to
watch workers move … and knowing that
I had a lot to do with that. … I’ve watched
workers move to running mass meetings,
negotiating real difficult things and really
fighting. Yes, that to me is the greatest
work that I’ve ever done. (Therese)
Such enthusiasm may be found expressed by
men union activists, but there is something
‘womanist’ (Walker 1983, p. 3) in Therese’s
emphasis on passion, on enhancing the activ-
ism of others, and on valuing her own work.
Both these officials articulate a vision of
union practices which is rarely mentioned in
the traditional literature on trade unionism.
Their motivation to engage in workplace activ-
ism does not emphasize a concept of trade
unionism as an instrument of opposition to
class oppression, although class relations
contribute to the structure of workplace con-
ditions. Rather, these officials value practices
which enable workers to overcome the con-
sequences of oppressive work relations. The
women officials contrast these practices, based
on ideal values of solidarity and collective
action, to the practices and strategies of
traditional unionism, and appeal to the
enabling and democratizing benefits of their
approach. The altruism of their commitment
shifts from providing a ‘service for the
membership’ (Ledwith et al. 1990, p. 121) to
finding ways to enable and to strengthen the
capacities of workers and union members.
The women officials have reinterpreted
‘service’ in ways which challenge discourses
of feminine care. Service does not necessarily
require sacrifice, and may allow other kinds
of satisfactions rarely available to women
in the public domain. Other studies also
report that union leaders mention their pride
in occupying central positions in their own
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
COMMITMENT AND EMOTIONAL LABOUR IN THE UNION MOVEMENT
organization, as well as ‘the respect they
earned from members, colleagues and man-
agement’ (Watson 1988, p. 109). Watson
found they regarded union work as a
vocation, and as ‘central to their lives’ (ibid,
p. 108). In my study, a Secretary of a large
white-collar union who has a status and
authority unusual among workers, and
almost nonexistent among women workers,
declares, ‘I feel extremely privileged to have
the opportunity to be the keeper of
something that is so important’ (Harriet).
Commitment involves acting to improve the
lot of workers, to making a difference. The
organization of trade unionism allows some
women to do so. The exercise of such oppor-
tunities helps bind the officials to the greedy
institution, the union.
Opportunities and obstacles
Until recently, unions rarely allowed women
the opportunity of leadership positions to
put their commitment to the institutions of
unionism into effect. The current moves of
women into union leadership, together with
the availability of relevant feminist dis-
courses, have altered the meanings and the
possibilities of the women officials’ relation-
ships with the union movement. As one
senior official said:
… where else do [young women] get an
opportunity to lead, to challenge the status
quo, to use political passion in a con-
structive and focused way … I had … an
ideal and a passion … things must change
and will change and they’ll change through
determined work by a minority of people.
(Marie)
Many of the women officials found satis-
faction in accomplishing the goals to which
they are committed. ‘You can feel that you
are actually having an effect, internationally,
state and locally. And that’s what I came in
here for, to have a bigger effect than just
in the (workplace)’ (Denise). ‘Rewards are
really when you win something for the mem-
bers, with the members, with them or for
them. So if you achieve a good result, there’s
nothing in the world like it, really, it’s terrific’
(Leslie). ‘Getting a win is a really good
reward’ (Louise). The problem, of course, is
that ‘It doesn’t happen as much, as often as
we would like, and it’s getting much harder’
(Leslie).
It is important to recognize that such
possibilities are available. However, most
studies on women in positions of union
leadership focus almost entirely on the
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
261
obstacles, the difficulties, the hostility of the
men and an antagonistic male culture (Heery
and Kelly 1989; Ledwith et al. 1990; Roby
and Uttal 1993; White 1993; Cunnison and
Stageman 1995). Very few public institutions
meet feminist criteria, particularly in the
areas of leadership and of women-oriented
policies and practices (Kanter 1977; Hearn
and Parkin 1987). In this sense, trade unions
are no more resistant to women than other
public or private sector organizations. As
Cockburn found, ‘In theory there is consider-
able, as yet scarcely tested, scope for trade
unions to transform themselves in the inter-
ests of their female, black and lowest-paid
members’ (Cockburn 1991, p. 229). It is this
possibility that attracts those women activ-
ists who are concerned with gender equality
in the workplace.
It follows that women officials have a
particular investment in the realization of
union ideals. They pose such ideals against
the dominant discourses of unionism that
assume men are normative unionists, a
notion that excludes women. However, these
same discourses are somewhat contradictory
in that they articulate ideals of justice that
allow the inclusion of women. The women
officials exploit such discursive possibilities
and they therefore have a powerful invest-
ment in the material realization of union
ideals.
Nevertheless, disappointment and disillu-
sionment with unionism are a common
enough theme among activists as well as in
the literature (Briskin 1983; Cobble 1990,
1993; Cockburn 1991). In addition to the
intransigent opposition of men unionists
towards women workers, a significant frus-
tration for the women officials (as well as for
men) is the frequency of internal union dis-
unity usually defined as factional conflict.2
Wanna argues that ‘faction fighting, person-
ality clashes and a preoccupation with local
issues continue to sap much of the energy of
Australian unionism’ (Wanna 1981, p. 134).
Some of the women officials believe it under-
mines the fundamental union principle of
solidarity.
I didn’t believe it should be happening. …
Why should we be having to fight our
own? And that’s particularly the case with
women’s issues. Why should we be having
to fight within our own movement to
achieve what our movement is supposed
to represent and be fighting for in the
broader world? (Leslie)
The problems of internal political conflict are
connected with the considerable difficulties
unions have in organizing the great diversity
Volume 7 Number 4 October 2000
262
of workers’ interests. These are directly
related to the exchange of labour power in-
cluding ‘not only material rewards but also
such things as job satisfaction, health, leisure
time, and continuity of employment’ (Offe
1985, p. 179). Feminist unionists include the
claims of justice and equity for women wage
workers; claims which fail to register when
workers are seen as gender-neutral.
Some of the women officials explain the
problem as a failure by unionists to work
towards a common purpose:
… a lot of people don’t have a very strong
political idea of what they’re on about.
They’re there because they’re there. … a lot
of people get a position and then assume
that that’s their right for the rest of their
life. I suspect a lot of people win because
they [members] haven’t got any other
alternatives. It worries me a lot. I mean
there are exceptions, mainly women. …
But there seems to me to be a lot of dead
wood around. (Trish)
The ‘dead wood’ criticism has become a
commonplace in those organizations where
an active and visible expression of commit-
ment to the organization’s purposes is cen-
tral. Berry and Kitchener (1989) claim in their
polemic Can Unions Survive? that among the
many fine people in the union movement
there are those who are ‘a disgrace to the
movement’. They display ‘incompetence,
bloody-mindedness and even corruption’
while their ‘reactionary, selfish and ignorant
attitudes’ inhibit union revitalization (ibid,
p. 6).
There is an increasing urgency to the ‘dead
wood’ criticism as the situation of union
organization is now critical. The union move-
ment has always been in an oppositional and
less powerful relation with capitalism, but
since the 1980s, campaigns against workers’
organizations have taken on new and more
destructive forms. (See for example, the cam-
paign against the industrial conditions of the
Maritime Workers’ Union of Australia, 1998.)
The traditional structures of work have
changed radically; the economy has become
integrated more closely to global capital,
and the social contract between the state
and labour has become very frayed. In an
environment where membership is declining
and the old verities of traditional unionism
cease to hold sway, the whole movement
is demoralized (Beilharz 1994; Western
1996). As a result, the compelling ques-
tion, can unions survive? focuses on the
internal problems of the movement: the ‘dead
wood’.
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GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
Other women officials reject these kinds
of individualist explanations of unionism’s
failures in favour of explicit political theory:
I fear that the more the pressure is on, the
more the structures will collapse. The
sense of solidarity and the sense of your
work based on a broader trade union
movement. If it starts to structurally come
asunder … I suspect that it will force
people into having a view that is no
different than from Trotsky’s and it’s going
to be housekeeping leading sometimes to
mindless activism … because if you’re
struggling to survive you can’t have the
vision. (Hester)
According to Hester, the union movement’s
long-standing debates over its political role,
between challenging capitalism or maintain-
ing a labourist approach to wages and con-
ditions, tend to be resolved in favour of the
latter.3 The telling, if too common use of
the term ‘housework’ signifies trivial activity
that does nothing to transform workplace
relations or to challenge capitalism. In this,
Hester alludes to an historic dilemma for trade
unionism about whether to pursue trade
unionism as a service or as a cause (Watson
1988, p. 185). This debate has taken on new
dimensions as a result of the demands and
expectations of women union activists and
researchers. For example, political practices
aimed at empowering women workers and
rank and file union members, strongly
endorsed by Therese and Dee (cited earlier),
may be seen as trivial since they do not ap-
pear to offer much challenge to the powerful
structures of capitalism. However, as many
feminist critics of trade unionism argue,
unless the union movement pays attention to
the politicization of women in this way, it
will continue to alienate women (Beale 1982;
Muir 1994).
It appears therefore that the women
officials here, as part of a relatively recent
phenomenon in trade unions, are challen-
ging traditional unionism’s limitations. They
create space for more interactive and em-
powering discourses and practices of the
kind that are necessary as well as construct-
ive in a movement that is in danger of
arthritic stagnation.
Gaps in union commitment
The discussion so far suggests that the issue
of commitment to a ‘greedy institution’
includes a strong allegiance to the possibility
of achieving goals based on particular
values. The women officials are committed
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
COMMITMENT AND EMOTIONAL LABOUR IN THE UNION MOVEMENT
to implementing what they understand to be
those union ideals that they believe will
benefit women as well as men workers. In
addition to the obstacles of men’s dominance
of the ‘men’s movement’, the women officials
are confronted with a problem common to
social activists and the ‘select few’ (Coser
1974, p. 4), namely, the gap between their own
commitment to the goals of the organization
and that of the majority of the members.
… we hold meetings and their level of
attendance is poor. … the level of apathy
of membership … Of course the biggest
frustration is the unreasonable attitude of
many employers. Seeing good members,
good workers, being screwed by their
employers and the restraints of the system
are very frustrating. (Eva)
The problem of gaps between union activists
(in this case, women officials) and the
membership is widely recognized (Wanna
1981; Watson 1988; Peetz 1992). In addition to
the ‘dead wood’ in the leadership, critics
refer to the distance between the leadership
and the members, and to the ways leadership
perks and privileges undermine understand-
ing and awareness of the members’ interests
and needs. Such criticism assumes that the
real impetus for worker struggles lies with
workers and underplays the value and the
significance of the commitment of union
activists.
This is a paradox. Those who are most
committed are most in danger of becoming
distanced and alienated from those whom
they aim to serve. The reason lies not only
in the extent to which their experience as
union activists differs from workers, in organ-
izing and negotiating with the employers,
and among themselves, but also because their
own enthusiasm is often met with apathy or
criticism from the members. As Watson
found:
Officers regularly criticised the members’
passive attitude to union affairs … and
saw this as an important influence in
creating a separation between the mem-
bers and the union officer who was seen
as the ‘public face’ of the union … [The
officers] recognised that appearing to be
‘out of touch’ was an inherent difficulty.
(Watson 1988, p. 147)
The dilemma about the potential for
separation between union leadership and
union members has long been canvassed by
commentators as well as by unionists them-
selves (Webb and Webb 1911; Mills 1948;
Jackson 1982; Offe 1985; Watson 1988; Berry
and Kitchener 1989). The task for the union
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
263
activist is to reconcile the attitudes and the
expressed interests of members with their own
commitments to the trade union movement.
They need to connect their broader under-
standing of workers’ situations, which they
gain from their wider experience, with the
democratic ideals of unionism.
The task for women officials is further com-
plicated by the need to negotiate the tension
between women’s interests and the hegemonic
pressures of men’s interests. I believe the
additional difficulty for feminists who come
to occupy formal positions of leadership in
any organization, including trade unions,
lies in the deeply ambivalent meanings of
difference among women within the context
of patriarchal gender relations. Women union
officials who are committed to representing
and advocating women’s interests find that,
on the one hand, they are assumed to repre-
sent all women and on the other, that many,
including other women, regard them as
among the select (and thus different) few of
the institution.
Workload
I began by observing the extremely heavy
workloads demanded by trade union activ-
ism. However, trade union work also pro-
vides women with many of the advantages
of non-traditional women’s work in that it
allows for the exercise and development of a
wide range of skills, the possibility of acting
on political principles and a relative degree
of autonomy. Typically, such work has no
limits; there is always more that could be
done with the result that full-time union
officials have highly demanding jobs with
very long hours.
This kind of workload has always been a
significant obstacle to women’s involvement
in unionism (Drake 1920). In order to become
a rank and file activist, the starting point for
many union officials, women in effect must
take on a third job, in addition to their paid
work and their domestic work (Roby and
Uttal 1993). Advancement into a full-time
union position generally does not reduce
the load since the demands of the position
are so great. Union officials commonly work
between 50 and 60 hours a week (Watson
1988; Heery and Kelly 1989). White’s study
of Canadian unionists found that ‘between
80 and 90 percent of the staff felt that their
workload was much too heavy to handle’
(White 1993, p. 140). The women officials in
the study here are no different, working a
range from 45 hours to 58 hours, with half
working over 60 hours a week.
Volume 7 Number 4 October 2000
264
I would add that flexibility constitutes a
further burden in union work. ‘It just varies,
it’s really hard to define. One week it could
be 35 to 38 hours and the next week it could
be 80’ (Tina). A 60-hour week of paid work
makes particular demands on the worker’s
life, but when the working week also varies
by ten or more hours, an extra dimension
is added to the business of managing every-
day life. This creates particular difficulties
for women who are typically responsible for
the domestic, whether they themselves are in
paid work or not. Conflicts with employers,
with other unions, with the peak councils,
even within the union itself may demand a
rapid and time-consuming response, at any
time. ‘It depends on whether we’re in high
stress campaign mode or not, and high stress
campaign mode seems to come surprisingly
often’ (Wendy).
In this regard, union work is not dissimilar
from those occupations which are free from
the unremitting rhythms of machinery, and
which grant a degree of relative autonomy to
the individual worker. The work can expand
to fill all the time available, a characteristic
which it shares with housework.
The long hours also may be exacerbated by
a culture of ‘masculine heroics’. In union
work, men portray the job as one which
requires ‘Twenty-four-hour a day, seven-
day-a-week commitment’ (Cockburn 1991,
p. 122). Similarly, Muir’s report of a large-
scale study of South Australian trade unions
observed that ‘the myth of the heroic, tough
and self-sacrificing official was one unions
unconsciously perpetuated’ (Muir 1994, 15).
Several of the women officials felt that
culture was endemic:
I think there’s a real cowboy thing in this
business about who works the longest hours
and the most weeks without holidays and
weekends and nights, and no real caring
about ourselves and I reckon that’s some-
thing that has to change. Yes, we’re com-
mitted and yes, we can work long hours,
but let’s start looking at the quality of work
people put in rather than the quantity.
I’ve known people to be around the office
every minute of the day and not produce
anything, you know … (Nadia)
Nadia’s ‘real cowboy thing’ echoes the
‘masculine heroics’ of workloads, with an
additional implication of an aggressive per-
formance of machismo. The women officials
are clearly critical, but they also stress their
own capacity to work hard.
The ‘masculine heroics’ of union culture is
often disparaged, but it does not occur in
isolation. Discourses which value hard work
Volume 7 Number 4 October 2000
GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
and long hours have gained increasing
prominence in the wider culture. The
material reality of increasing work hours
for full-time workers is well documented.
Australian workers in particular are working
longer and harder. By the late 1990s, 32% of
full timers worked more than 48 hours a
week, and over half did not get paid for the
overtime (Australian Centre for Industrial
Relations Research and Training 1999).
Heavy workloads and long hours have be-
come axiomatic among certain occupations.
Understood largely in terms of a discourse
which grants considerable value to work
overload, such increases in workload have
been central to Australian campaigns to
‘restructure’ the economy. This, in turn,
undermines the development of alternative
work practices and discourses.
Heavy workloads are a long-term feature
of union work (Clegg et al. 1961) and the
greedy institution of the union demands
nothing less than ‘twenty-four hours a day’.
The committed union official is described as
… a workaholic, eighteen-hour-a-day
activist who always puts the union first. …
Paradoxically few unions have adopted
the kind of flexible work arrangements they
advocate at the bargaining table. Most of
the women leaders … rejected as unreal-
istic for practical, political and financial
reasons, flexible job options for women in
staff or leadership positions. Theirs is not
an eight-hour job; the fight for justice is
full-time. (Needleman 1993, p. 410)
The women officials are critical of their heavy
workloads; most decry the high personal
costs and they well recognize the gendered
effects on women workers and unionists.
They contribute to political campaigns on
working time, but they rarely develop a
political, collective strategy of resistance to
these conditions in their own workplaces.
One woman who became a union Secretary
of a large white-collar union identifies the
complex of reasons involved in accepting
such workloads:
It was head down, bum up, plough
through it, you do whatever hours are
necessary. You’ve got to do this on your
own because you put your hand up for it.
… I couldn’t see my way. It was just
terrifying. I thought the minute I stopped I
was just going to be enveloped by this
ghastly job … So I just bush bashed and
then the health impact. … I had become
so depleted by my work patterns and
the demands of the job. I felt increasingly
frustrated and then realism confronting
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
COMMITMENT AND EMOTIONAL LABOUR IN THE UNION MOVEMENT
idealism. I was knackered, just plain
knackered. (Marie)
Workload rapidly became overload. Without
time to benefit from the expertise of others,
or to develop adequate material or emotional
support, Marie’s leadership foundered when
her ‘idealism confronted realism’. Her energy
and enthusiasm were thoroughly depleted
by the greedy institution of the union. She
has now withdrawn from all union activism.
This is not an isolated case. White, for example,
notes the high turnover among women in
union positions. Whether this is different
from men unionists is not clear since ‘no
study has been conducted to compare men
and women in this regard’ (White 1993,
p. 139).
The price of heavy workloads for these
women officials is paid in clear, gendered
terms. Where Marie devoted herself exclus-
ively to the union, a second senior official
sought a different balance between union
work and her domestic life. The outcome has
been less physically devastating, but did
undermine her union position. The official,
who had a young baby when she won an
election to national office, located in Sydney,
negotiated conditions which allowed her
to remain in Adelaide4 and to work part-
time.
Establishing the agreement for the job to
be part-time wasn’t a problem because
we’ve got a very strong policy on the
involvement of women. (Lana)
This negotiation was reported as ‘a major
coup’ for both women with families, and
for the smaller Australian States. It seemed a
new generation of women were succeeding
in transforming the unions. There was
sufficient political weight behind the union’s
affirmative action policies to prevent circum-
vention by any remaining opposition. But
geography turned the ‘coup’ into defeat. Since
the head offices of most unions are located in
Sydney or Melbourne, political pragmatism
requires one’s physical presence, in spite of
telecommunication facilities. Lana’s commit-
ment to her family conflicted with the
requirements of everyday union politics. The
result was she lost her political influence,
with ‘nowhere else to go’.
Not in this union. But I’ve been to the top
and I’m on my way down so I’m not sure
how much further I want to go before I go
out. That may have been different if I’d
have moved [to Sydney]. I think I would
have political support if I’d have moved.
(Lana)
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
265
Neither the union nor the family allows
women a flexibility appropriate to their
needs. Neither of these greedy institutions
accommodates the complexities of women’s
lives.
The women officials seek to negotiate
these effects. They recognize that workload
strikes at the potential involvement of
women generally, both as union activists and
as officials. Some attempts have been made
to tackle the issue collectively and politically,
but the possibilities of implementing any
changes depend on more than the limited
powers of women officials. As individuals,
their increasing experience allowed them to
gain some control over the union workload,
but this does little to counter the growing
pressures on their work in a difficult period
for the trade union movement. In effect, there
is still room for commitment to only one
greedy institution at a time.
Emotional labour
Time is a measure of commitment, as is
‘service to members’. The meanings of work
time and service are shaped by relations of
gender. What makes union work different
for women is that caring for others/taking
care of others is a significant component of
women’s work, both in the public and in the
domestic realms (Spencer and Podmore 1987;
Rees 1992). Discourses of femininity assume
the location of women within the domestic
sphere, especially the family where a certain
kind of caring is essential. Women bear this
meaning of care into the public domain of
the workplace. Trade unions endorse an ethic
of ‘service to members’, but care is translated
in male terms as the defence of wages and
conditions. How then do women officials
negotiate ‘service to members’? What are the
consequences when womanly care meets
union service?
Hochschild (1983) conceptualized care in
the workplace as ‘emotional labour’ to refer
to the worker’s management of their feelings
which aims to produce appropriate feelings
in others. She argues that the work on their
feelings demanded by the workplace is very
much part of the job, but at a cost of the
worker’s alienation. In some occupations,
workers create for others a ‘sense of being
cared for’, in others, it may create a sense of
threat. Women tend to predominate in occu-
pations which require the former (Hochschild
1983, p. 163). Hochschild’s precise definition
of emotional labour includes aspects of
men’s work as well. However, it has come to
refer to women’s efforts to make others ‘feel
Volume 7 Number 4 October 2000
266
loved, secure, understood, or competent’
(Beasley 1994, p. 32).
Women officials value ‘service to mem-
bers’ (Ledwith et al. 1990, p. 121), but other
emotions than care are also brought into play
in union work. The capacity to lead the
organization forcefully and engage in ag-
gressive negotiations with employers, with
contenders for positions and with factional
and inter-union conflict traditionally are
significant in the emotional and political
lives of trade unionists. The difference is that
men are encouraged to relish the combative
element of the job, while for women it is
problematic (Cockburn 1991, p. 121).
Heery and Kelly (1989) explored this
aspect of trade union culture around the
question of ‘toughness’ understood as dedi-
cation and commitment combined with a
hard, assertive personal style. Women union-
ists were critical of ‘the ‘macho’ style of their
male colleagues, but regarded it as essen-
tial to trade union practices. At the same
time, those women who took up such prac-
tices themselves were in danger of being
seen as ‘a bit waspish’ (Heery and Kelly
1989, p. 199). This suggests that complex
discourses and practices of patriarchal gender
relations cannot be avoided by simply adopt-
ing dominant male practices.
Emotional labour and union service
In the face of these complexities, the ways
women undertake emotional labour is
neither fixed nor static. A memorable image
from my research: an industrial officer who
had already worked long hours at the union
office stands in her nightclothes in her cold
hallway at midnight attempting to comfort a
distraught member, a frequent event. In a
later interview she talked about how she had
changed:
I’ve become much better at being able to
care about others in a way that they will be
able to do some of the hard work and feel
OK about themselves. I can start being
realistic about the work and stop being
driven to the point of exhaustion … I’m
very driven to save other people. … [but]
less so than I used to. And sometimes that
makes me feel like I’m being hard. But I
realize that you can’t work to remove the
oppression of others based on the oppres-
sion of yourself, it’s totally inconsistent.
(Therese)
The expression of care is modified; emotional
labour is rationalized as part of the solution
to the problem of limiting responsibilities
without abandoning moral concern (Gilligan
Volume 7 Number 4 October 2000
GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
1982, pp. 69–71). The emotional costs are
balanced against the passions of commit-
ment. These themes were repeated by other
officials. From throwing themselves into a
wholehearted but unrestrained care, they
report shifts into a more discriminating,
perhaps instrumental, or utilitarian exercise
of care.
I try to not become a crutch to people and
take over, so I try to give people as much
power over their own situation as possible
and not do things for them. (Helen)
I put a political view that says that’s molly-
coddling people. … I guess I do it for
political reasons rather than social or
friendship principles. (Trish)
The risks described here are integral to any
field of caring work. However, union work,
particularly for these women officials, in-
corporates a discursive commitment to
democratic empowerment, caring for others
therefore may be understood in political
terms.
The women officials sketch a path between
an instrumental approach to service, much
criticized by feminism, and one which per-
sonally takes on members’ feelings and
experiences (Weeks 1994). This is further com-
plicated when women occupy leadership
positions:
I do find too that they [all women] want
feedback from me or want to know that
I am aware and care about what they are
doing. But they are not necessarily inter-
ested in how I feel … I’m there, I’m mother,
they don’t want to hear if mother’s having
a problem. (Kay)
The gendered expectation that Kay express a
womanly, motherly care is exacerbated by a
particular organizational dynamic. Women
rarely occupy positions of seniority, and where
they do, they are frequently located in small
organizations in which the membership
and leadership meet on the same ground.
Collective and democratic decision-making
thus appears more possible than in larger,
hierarchical organizations. However, as Kay
found, such egalitarianism can also be under-
mined by feminine discourses of care that
assume the care of the responsible mother.
By contrast, the few senior women officials
in larger organizations tend to take a more
global view of the meanings of care and
service to members:
Every time you go to a [worksite] you’re
there to say, look, I’m for you, we’re for
you, tell me about your problems, let me
get something done for you, so yes, it’s a
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
COMMITMENT AND EMOTIONAL LABOUR IN THE UNION MOVEMENT
very caring job. Yes, it’s very emotionally
demanding, but anything to do with
caring in the union sense and campaigning
and winning and losing, I love it. I wouldn’t
be able to do this job if I didn’t. (Denise)
This is close to traditional discourses of
leadership, where caring ‘in the union sense’
is articulated from the top of the hierarchy
rather than, for example, through member-
ship collectivism.
Overall, the women officials construe
taking care in terms of empowerment rather
than of helping. Their commitment to union-
ism includes as fundamental the principle of
egalitarian activism. They are very aware
of the obstacles in the path of participatory
democracy, including their own personal
fears or lack of confidence, which they work
to overcome. They show an acute awareness
of the possibility that others are likely to be
similarly hampered. This is in addition to the
pacifying effects of oppression by employers
and the ways union organization may limit
members’ activism. The women officials
regard tackling any and all of these obstacles
as constituting forms of taking care and of
service to members. For them, ‘taking care’
assumes that unionism is liberating when it
is based on empowerment, rather than on
undemocratic bureaucracy or on the narrow
assumptions of unionism’s masculine heroics.
Conclusion
The trade union movement is a greedy
institution because it evokes commitment
and loyalty, and demands high levels of
work and emotional labour. It incorporates
ideals and possibilities as well as contradictory
dilemmas and problems. As union women
tackle these, they play a very important part
in union survival, as expressed by a woman
official:
… if unions are able to go back to dealing
with people in the workplace about work-
place issues and organizing amongst
workers I actually think there’s some
chance that that process in itself can
change the nature and structure of unions
and power, and actually try and bring
union issues closer to where people can
care and be involved without the insane-
ness that I’ve put myself through and
everyone else I know has done. … I think
that’s the only way that there will be a real
and genuine process of shifting power and
shifting the nature of unions in a way that
will benefit women and workers generally.
(Wendy)
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
267
The discourses and practices of commitment,
workloads and emotional labour are relevant
to men as well as to women, but they take
particular forms in relation to women in
trade unionism. They reveal the complex of
political considerations which prevent a
narrow interpretation of women’s engage-
ment with unionism.
The women officials’ commitment to the
potential of unionism to meet the needs of
women workers is shaped by their own
accumulated experience, as well as by their
location in trade union structures. Their prac-
tices do not remain static. Union workload is
located within the changing discourses about
increasing workload in Australia, in addition
to being shaped by the heroic culture of trade
union work. The women officials are chal-
lenging the feminine dimensions of emotional
labour in the public domain of unionism as
they move towards a more complex emotional
labour that aims active empowerment for
union members rather than a receptive sup-
port. The male dominance of this public
greedy institution continues, but does not go
unchanged. Where women work and engage
in the trade union movement, new political
possibilities become available.
Notes
1. The values of trade unionism are the subject of
considerable debate in the industrial relations
literature (Hyman 1975; Offe 1985; Williams
1992).
2. The issue of ‘factions’ in the labour movement
is complex and multifaceted: see, for example,
Gardner (1989).
3. Labourism in Australia has come to refer to an
orientation in which unions restrict their activ-
ity to improvements in wages and conditions
for workers within the existing capitalist order.
The state is seen as having only an indirect role
in ensuring living standards. Such an approach
generally excludes activity which takes up
wider social and economic concerns (Beilharz
1994, pp. 36–41).
4. Adelaide is a minimum of one and a half hours
flying time from Sydney, depending on flight
schedules it can take up to half a day to cover
the distance.
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